"I never kept account."
"And in many different ways?"
"Why? Have you, perchance, discovered a new way, Nick?"
"Not at all. The oldest way of any, the way of Sappho and Pindar."
"O-ooh!" She clapped her hands in mock delight. "Poetry!"
"The only medium that could possibly express how lovely you are," said
Nick.
"Nicholas, have you gone and composed a poem to me?"
"Composed? No. It isn't necessary, with you here beside me."
"What's that? Some very subtle compliment?"
"Not subtle, Pat. You're the poem yourself; all I need do is look at
you, listen to you, and translate."
"Neat!" applauded the girl. "Do I hear the translation?"
"You certainly do." He turned his odd amber-green eyes on her, then
bent forward to the road. He began to speak in a low voice.
"In no far country's silent ways
Shall I forget one little thing--
The soft intentness of your gaze,
The sweetness of your murmuring
Your generously tender praise,
The words just hinted by a breath--
In no far country's silent way,
Unless that country's name be Death--"
He paused abruptly, and drove silently onward.
"Oh," breathed Pat. "Why don't you go on, Nick? Please."
"No. It isn't the mood for this night, Dear. Not this night, alone with
you."
"What is, then?"
"Nothing sentimental. Something lighter, something--oh, Elizabethan.
That's it."
"And what's stopping you?"
"Lack of an available idea. Or--wait. Listen a moment." He began, this
time in a tone of banter.
"When mornings, you attire yourself
For riding in the city,
You're such a lovely little elf,
Extravagantly pretty!
And when at noon you deign to wear
The habit of the town,
I cannot call to mind as fair
A symphony in brown.
"Then evenings, you blithely don
A daintiness of white,
To flash a very paragon
Of lightsomeness--and light!
But when the rounds of pleasure cease,
And you retire at night,
The Godling on your mantelpiece
Must know a fairer sight!"
"Sweet!" laughed Pat. "But personal. And anyway, how do you know I've a
godling on my mantel? Don't you credit me with any modesty?"
"If you haven't, you should have! The vision I mentioned ought to
enliven even a statue."
"Well," said the girl, "I have one--a jade Buddha, and with all the
charms I flash before him nightly, he's never batted an eyelash.
Explain that!"
"Easily. He's green with envy, and frozen with admiration, and struck
dumb by wonder."
"Heavens! I suppose I ought to be thankful you didn't say he was
petrified with fright!" Pat laughed. "Oh Nick," she continued, in a
voice gone suddenly dreamy, "this _is_ marvelous, isn't it? I mean our
enjoying ourselves so completely, and our being satisfied to be so
alone. Why, we've never even danced together."
"So we haven't. That's a subterfuge we haven't needed, isn't it?"
"It is," replied the girl, dropping her glossy gleaming black head
against his shoulder. "And besides, it's much more satisfactory to be
held in your arms in private, instead of in the midst of a crowd, and
sitting down, instead of standing up. But I should like to dance with
you, Nick," she concluded.
"We'll go dancing, then, whenever you like."
"You're delightfully complaisant, Nick. But--you're puzzling." She
glanced up at him. "You're so--so reluctant. Here we've been driving an
hour, and you haven't tried to kiss me a single time, and yet I'm quite
positive you care for me."
"Lord, Pat!" he muttered. "You never need doubt that."
"Then what is it? Are you so spiritual and ethereal, or is my
attraction for you just sort of intellectual? Or--are you afraid?" As
he made no reply, she continued, "Or are those poems you spout about my
physical charms just--poetic license?"
"They're not, and you know it!" he snapped. "You've a mirror, haven't
you? And other fellows than I have taken you around, haven't they?"
"Oh, I've been taken around! That's what perplexes me about you, Nick.
I'd think you were actually afraid of kissing me if it weren't--" Her
voice trailed into silence, and she stared speculatively ahead at the
ribbon of road that rolled steadily into the headlights' glare.
She broke the interval of wordlessness. "What is it, Nick?" she
resumed almost pleadingly. "You've hinted at something now and then.
Please--you don't have to hesitate to tell me; I'm modern enough to
forgive things past, entanglements, affairs, disgraces, or anything
like that. Don't you think I should know?"
"You'd know," he said huskily, "if I could tell you."
"Then there is something, Nick!" She pressed his arm against her. "Tell
me, isn't there?"
"I don't know." There was the suggestion of a groan in his voice.
"You don't know! I can't understand."
"I can't either. Please, Pat, let's not spoil tonight; if I could tell
you, I would. Why, Pat, I love you--I'm terribly, deeply, solemnly in
love with you."
"And I with you, Nick." She gazed ahead, where the road rose over the
arch of a narrow bridge. The speeding car lifted to the rise like a
zooming plane.
And suddenly, squarely in the center of the road, another car, until
now concealed by the arch of the bridge, appeared almost upon them.
There was a heart-stopping moment when a collision seemed inevitable,
and Pat felt the arm against her tighten convulsively into a bar of
steel. She heard her own sobbing gasp, and then, somehow, they had
slipped unscathed between the other car and the rail of the bridge.
"Oh!" she gasped faintly, then with a return of breath, "That was nice,
Nick!"
Beyond the bridge, the road widened once more; she felt the car
slowing, edging toward the broad shoulder of the road.
"There was danger," said her companion in tones as emotionless as the
rasping of metal. "I came to save it."
"Save what?" queried Pat as the car slid to a halt on the turf.
"Your body." The tones were still cold, like grinding wheels. "The
beauty of your body!"
He reached a thin hand toward her, suddenly seized her skirt and
snatched it above the silken roundness of her knees. "There," he
rasped. "That is what I mean."
"Nick!" Pat half-screamed in appalled astonishment. "How--" She paused,
shocked into abrupt silence, for the face turned toward her was but a
remote, evil caricature of Nicholas Devine's. It leered at her out of
blood-shot eyes, as if behind the mask of Nick's face peered a red-eyed
demon.
5